The invention relates to a module for a data carrier with the data carrier supporting the performance of both operations with contacts and operations without contacts and with the module containing an integrated component which has component connections used in operations with contacts and which here are in an electrically conductive connection with counter contacts in a communications station and component connections used in operations without contacts and which here are in an electrically conductive connection with counter contacts of transmission means which work in a contactless manner, and with the module having a contact field with module connecting contacts accessible to counter contacts, with each component connection used in operations with contacts being in an electrically conductive connection with a module connecting contact of the contact field.
The invention also relates to a data carrier supporting the performance of both operations with contacts and operations without contacts and which contains a module with the aforesaid embodiment described in the first paragraph.
The invention also relates to a device designed to accommodate and work with a data carrier in accordance with the aforesaid embodiment described in the second paragraph and which contains a communications station which has counter contacts, with which the module connecting contacts in the data carrier module which may be accommodated in the device may be brought into contact, which are in an electrically conductive connection with the component connections used in operations with contacts.
In connection with a module described above in the first paragraph and with a data carrier described above in the second paragraph, reference may be made to U.S. Pat. No. 6,145,749 A. From this patent, a data carrier is known that may be used both in operations with contacts and in operations without contacts. The known data carrier has an integrated component which has several component connections which are in an electrically conductive connection with module connecting contacts of a contact field. In addition, the integrated unit has two more other component connections, which are intended for electrically conductive connection with a transmission coil provided as a transmission means which works in a contactless manner, with the two other component connecting contacts being in an electrically conductive connection with two additional module connecting contacts which are not described in any more detail in U.S. Pat. No. 6,145,749 A and with the two additional module connecting contacts each being in contact and in an electrically conductive connection with a counter contact of the transmission coil. In the known embodiment, therefore, additional module connecting contacts are required for the electrically conductive connection of the transmission coil with the module and consequently with the integrated unit, which in many applications represents an unnecessary additional expense and may sometimes represent an unwanted source of errors, so the situation needs to be improved.
It is an object of the invention to avoid the problems described above and to create an improved module and an improved data medium and an improved device.
To achieve this object, a module according to the invention is provided with features according to the invention, so that a module according to the invention may be characterized in the following way, namely:
A module for a data carrier, which may be used for both operations with contacts and operations without contacts, with the module containing an integrated component, which has component connections used for operations with contacts and here being in an electrically conductive connection with counter contacts of a communication station and having component connections used for operations without contacts and here being in an electrically conductive connection with counter contacts of transmission means which work in a contactless manner, and with the module having a contact field with module connecting contacts accessible to counter contacts, wherein each component connection used for operations with contacts being in an electrically conductive connection with a module connecting contact of the contact field and wherein each component connection used for operations without contacts also being in an electrically conductive connection with a module connecting contact of the contact field.
To achieve the above-described object in addition a data carrier according to the invention is provided with features according to the invention, so that a data carrier according to the invention may be characterized in the following way, namely:
A data carrier, which may be used to support the performance of both operations with contacts and operations without contacts and which comprises a module, with the module containing an integrated component which has component connections used for operations with contacts and which here being in an electrically conductive connection with counter contacts of a communication station and having component connections used for operations without contacts and which here being in an electrically conductive connection with counter contacts of transmission means which work in a contactless manner, and with the module having a contact field with module connecting contacts accessible to counter contacts, wherein each component connection used for operations with contacts being in an electrically conductive connection with a module connecting contact of the contact field and wherein each component connection used for operations without contacts also being in an electrically conductive connection with a module connecting contact of the contact field.
To achieve the above-described object, a device according to the invention is provided with features according to the invention, so that a device according to the invention may be characterized in the following way, namely:
A device, designed to accommodate and work with a data carrier according to the invention and containing a communication station wherein the device having counter contacts, the counter contacts may be brought into contact with the module connecting contacts of the module of the data carrier which may be accommodated in the device, which module connecting contacts being in an electrically conductive connection with the component connections used for operations with contacts, and wherein the device having transmission means which work in a contactless manner and which have counter contacts, the counter contacts may be brought into contact with the module connecting contacts of the data carrier which may be accommodated in the device, which module connecting contacts being in an electrically conductive connection with the component connections used for operations without contacts.
The provision of features according to the invention is a structurally simple and reliable way of ensuring that module connecting contacts in a module""s contact field may be used or are used for electrically conductive connections with transmission means which work in a contactless manner, so that separate module connecting contacts, provided additionally and spatially separate from the contact field in the module are not required and therefore may be dispensed with, which is advantageous with regard to a simple structural embodiment and a high degree of reliability and low susceptibility to faults. In connection with the invention, it has been found to be particularly advantageous if module connecting contacts of this type in a module""s contact field, which are already provided in the contact field but which are not used for operations with contacts, are used for electrically conductive connections with counter contacts of transmission means which work in a contactless manner, because this achieves a particularly simple structural embodiment, which is of particular advantage if the contact field is designed in accordance with Standard ISO 7816-2, because then module connecting contacts which are already provided, but which are not used for operations with contacts, may be used according to the invention to provide an electrically conductive connection with the counter contacts of transmission means.
In a module according to the invention and a data carrier according to the invention, it has been found to be extremely advantageous if the features in accordance with claim 2 or claim 5 are provided. This ensures that the integrated unit in a module according to the invention or in a data carrier according to the invention not only provides an electrically conductive connection between the external transmission carrier in relation to the module or the data carrier and the module connecting contacts of the contact field provided for this purpose, but that in addition, for example, internally provided transmission means of a data carrier may be provided with an electrically conductive connection with the integrated unit by means of the supplementary connecting contacts.
In a device according to the invention, the measures according to the invention have, therefore, been found to be particularly advantageous because the provision of the measures according to the invention enables transmission media to be provided in a device according to the invention, with the insertion of a data carrier according to the invention in the device, the transmission media automatically entering into an active connection with the data carrier""s module connecting contacts provided for this purpose via the transmission means"" counter contacts, so that after the insertion of a data carrier according to the invention and establishment of the electrically conductive connections with the transmission means resulting from this, a data carrier configuration suitable for the performance of operations without contacts is obtained. Here, it is particularly advantageous for the transmission means to be implemented independently of the data carrier in the device and thus to be dimensioned independently of the data carrier dimensions, which, for example, in the case of a transmission coil as transmission means has the advantage that the effective area of the transmission coil may be made much larger than the area of the data carrier.
The above-described aspects and further aspects of the invention may be derived from the following embodiments and are described using these embodiments.